


A Return To Progress

by TheSightlessSniper



Series: Recovery [4]
Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Adult Ciel Phantomhive, Angst with a touch of fluff, Ciel Knows The Words 'Thank You', Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Out of Character, Past Rape/Non-con, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rape Aftermath, Rape Recovery, Sebastian Might Have A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-28
Updated: 2017-04-28
Packaged: 2018-10-24 20:37:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10749363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSightlessSniper/pseuds/TheSightlessSniper
Summary: Fingers around his arm again. His eyes snapped open to Sebastian, sat on the edge of the bed, holding his hands away from where they had made to claw for his legs.’Young master?’ The concern was both visible, and audible.‘Don’t say it again.’





	A Return To Progress

**Author's Note:**

> Part four...I'm really dragging this out, aren't I?
> 
> As usual, please read the warnings; they are there for a reason.

Whilst serving him tea in his office, Sebastian realised that he could recall the exact number of hours it had been since _that_ night.

Ciel nodded in acknowledgement, picking up the cup and sipping while staring at the top sheet of a contract. ‘I fear I’m going to have to sever ties with this sugar supplier. Their prices have increased to more than their competition in recent months…I’m sure there’s a better deal to be had.’

‘Indeed, young master. Would you like for me to begin preparing a letter of negotiation for rival suppliers?’

‘Mm. Tomorrow, Sebastian. This afternoon, I believe that I have tea with Elizabeth.’

As Miss Midford’s name was vocalised, he was unaware aware that his fist had clenched harder on the silver tea tray than normal.

 

When Sebastian had left the room with the tea cart, Ciel dropped the pen in his hand to the side of the contracts before him and slowly sighed.

More than three weeks had passed since that night. And the shame was still coursing through his veins, burning within him like hellfire. Why had Sebastian’s words evoked such a reaction? What about those words had cut his progress short?

He shuddered, distracting himself by shuffling through the papers to his side. He couldn’t think about this, not with Lizzie on her way to the manor at that very moment. She had already been hounding him for the lack of affection at previous visitations, but somehow, when her hand tried to loop through his over the table where tea was served, it was terrifying. It felt wrong.

_Uncleanimpureworthlesswhore_

A knock from behind the door jarred his attentions. ‘Enter.’

A bespectacled face poked around the door. Mey-Rin timidly stood in the frame, and bowed a little- he really would have to have her trained in the custom of curtseying. ‘Mr. Sebastian wished for me to inform you that Miss Midford has arrived.’

 

The microscopic flinch when Lady Elizabeth touched her hand to his master’s was unmissable and unmistakable.

The quiver of his fingers as he dutifully took her hand in his, and the silent quickening of his breath only added to the confirmation that Ciel still wasn’t quite alright. Weeks had passed since he had allowed Sebastian to sleep in the bed next to him, but even so, the demon could not be much further away than arms length; if his hand was unreachable, his tormented master would scream, yell, sob in his sleep for clemency.

Once, he might have mocked him for this. Bruised his delicate pride by telling him of what a child he was being, and that nobody would take him seriously as a man if he couldn’t push past this. 

Suddenly, however, all he wanted was for the opportunity to cradle him as he once had, and take all of those terrors away. He wanted back the proud lord he had contracted with.

Sebastian stopped in the midst of pouring tea and took in the feel of the air around them. That same maelstrom of shame, underlined by fear, churned and flooded the air around them like a heavy, toxic gas cloud. It was all he could do not to shy away from the room.

Oblivious, Elizabeth smiled kindly. ‘Sebastian, your Victoria sponge is delicious…so much better than the bakeries in the city!’ She exclaimed.

‘Thank you, my lady.’

‘Indeed, Sebastian,’ Ciel added, ‘your cake is more than passable today.’

A rare compliment, laced with a barely discernible quake.

His master wasn’t right at all.

 

Lizzie’s visit felt like it lasted for a full century.

The second she was gone, Ciel slumped in the chair, breathing deep and cursing silently. He couldn’t even hold her hand without flashing back to _him-_

_‘Filthy little whore-‘_

_‘Where’s the demon who always comes to save you?’_

_‘Looks like he’s not coming for you this time-‘_

_‘This is your life now-’_

_‘Take it all in…this is all you’re good for-‘_

The air around him held him in a chokehold. He clawed away the eyepatch with one hand, the other raking through his hair and yanking at the strands. ‘Nononononoleavemealonenotagain-‘

‘Young master.’

His eyes fluttered open to crystalline vermillion. Sebastian’s hands rested on his forearms, gently pulling his nails away from his scalp and face and letting them fall to the arms of the chair. His breath slowed the longer he stared into the depths, searching for the magenta sparks that would inevitably be somewhere around the pupils- something only he, and those fated to die by Sebastian’s hand, could see- and soon the tightness around him loosened.

The butler’s hands pulled away, moving to a tea tray. ‘I sensed you getting tense during your meeting with the young lady, so I thought it best to make you chamomile tea to soothe your nerves, young master.’

_Young master_. Sebastian had reverted to using that title a lot more in recent weeks.

He slowly nodded, taking the fresh cup gratefully. ‘Thank you, Sebastian.’

As he leaned to sip the hot drink, he missed the flash of a soft smile break across the demon’s face.

 

‘Sebastian, you’re scrubbing those cups awfully hard. The young master won’t like it if the glaze chips away.’

He hadn’t even realised he had been in a daze. He blinked back at Bardroy, who was frowning and stubbing out yet another cigarette; he had been on twice as many in recent days. Between Finny breaking more plant pots than usual, Mey-Rin’s accidental destruction of bedsheets with too rough a scrubbing, and Bard’s chain-smoking, it seemed that the tension had seeped through into every other permanent member of the household besides old Tanaka; the old man just kept to himself and his pots of expertly-brewed green tea down in his quarters.

The cook shook his head. ‘Not like you to be distracted. What’s on your mind?’

He placed the thoroughly cleaned cups on a towel to allow the water to train off, then turned to Bardroy fully. ‘The young master seems to have reverted back to having frequent nightmares.’

The cook frowned, reaching for another cigarette from his pocket. ‘Hm. Usually there’s a trigger.’

‘You have experience with nightmares?’

A nod. Bardroy struck a match on the rough underside of the table nearby and lit the fresh smoke. ‘I had a lot of them after coming back from war. You see a lot…your friends shot, bloodied, maimed before your eyes. A few made it back completely unharmed, but in our heads, we were never the same.’

‘Are you implying that the young master will always have these nightmares?’

‘I’m not saying that it will always be bad. But there are still nights I wake up in a cold sweat, hearing gunshots and screams that aren’t there and smelling nothing but blood. You’ll have good days, where everything is calm and quiet. And then there can be days where it completely consumes you…you’re too terrified to even open your eyes because you’re scared that you’ll wake up and you’ll actually be back in the thick of it, watching your brothers-in-arms getting their brains blown out the back of their skulls.’ Bardroy shuddered and looked away. ‘It’s not like a cold. You don’t just get over it…it stays with you until the last moments of your life.’

Sebastian mulled the words over, taking in the expression on the Phantomhive cook’s face. Besides his incompetence in the kitchen, he had considered the other an excitable, but usually collected man. But suddenly there was a flicker of something in the depths of his chest; a respect, and dare he think it, a little bit of admiration.

Bardroy shook his head, heading for the door. ‘Whatever caused his nightmares, I’m sure you’ll find some way to help.’

‘…I hope that you are correct.’

 

Bathed and dressed for bed, Ciel leaned back on the sheets with his current book in hand, eyeing Sebastian as he packed up some freshly-laundered shirts.

There was something mesmerising about his every movement; each step was graceful, and something just kept drawing his eyes to his butler’s long legs.

And clearly it was something the other had noticed. Sebastian shot him a small knowing smile. ‘While I appreciate your gazes, young master, might I suggest directing them into that book between your hands? I believe Mr. Conan Doyle’s latest work will require some concentration to fully appreciate the plot. Purportedly, it is one of his best.’

He felt the flush continue to rise in his cheeks as he replied. ‘You think too much of yourself, Sebastian. While you do have a form that is to be appreciated, your attitude towards your master is currently leaving something to be desired.’

‘I must work on my bedside manner.’

‘Indeed.’

It was quiet for a moment, and Sebastian packed the last piece of clothing away in silence. Ciel stared at the words of the book before him, not really taking in what was happening on the page; he was too preoccupied by the sounds of the soft footsteps as the butler tended to his duties.

He didn’t know what triggered it that time. He turned the page, the paper crinkling in his grip-

_‘-all you’re good for-‘_

_‘-I love how you bleed-‘_

_‘Ahh…you’re wonderful…such a shame about the rest of you-‘_

_‘-so tight and perfect-‘_

Fingers around his arm again. His eyes snapped open to Sebastian, sat on the edge of the bed, holding his hands away from where they had made to claw for his legs.

’Young master?’ The concern was both visible, and audible.

‘Don’t say it again.’

‘…say what?’

He swallowed thickly. ‘Don’t use the word “wonderful” again. Or “perfect”. He…he said that. He said it whe-‘ he cut himself off as he sucked in a breath through his nose, turning away in shame.

He half-expected some kind of comment. Sebastian hadn’t exercised much flippancy with him as of late, so he suspected the earlier comments about the eyes he had been making at the butler’s body were the beginnings of a possible turn towards a cruel sense of humour.

Instead, the demon’s hands slipped down to his, thumbing over the backs, and the unspoken order flashed back at him in the other’s irises. ‘As you wish, young master.’

 

As his master shakily wrapped his arms around his torso, Sebastian couldn’t stop the strange elation that seared through him. When had he come to miss the warmth of his master’s body so much?

He let himself clamber over and slip onto the unoccupied space on the bed, reciprocating the desperate hold with his own and letting his arms wind around the smaller torso. The other pressed his forehead against his collarbone, breathing in deeply.

For the first time in weeks, Ciel allowed him in. ‘Sebastian…stay.’

So he did. After unceremoniously kicking off his shoes and shrugging off his tailcoat and waistcoat, the demon settled on his side under the sheets, body moulding to his master’s back as he read. The young man’s reading speed seemed to slow down in this position, but after a few pages, the demon realised with a smile that the other was holding the pages for him; he was waiting for him to finish reading the page before turning it.

The fingers of his free hand stroked through the slate-coloured strands at the side of his master’s head. ‘I have a rather inhuman reading speed, young master. Do not hold the next part of the story from yourself on my account.’

A chuckle. ‘Of course. How could I forget?’

‘Apparently quite easily. But…I do appreciate it, young master.’

 

As he neared the end of the chapter, Sebastian’s weight on his back shifted.

He’d never seen him sleep before. Sebastian didn’t even need to sleep; a demon only really needed to rest after coming into contact with something like a Reaper’s scythe or (as he had once alluded to when explaining the ways demons _could_ be killed) a demonically-forged weapon.

But he turned to see what was different, and there before his eyes was his demon butler; head resting on the pillows, mouth slightly agape, and breaths he didn’t need seeping out of the gap between his lips.

His eyes traced familiar features; impossibly pale freckles against his already parchment-toned skin, barely-there faux age lines under the shadowy curtains of thick black lashes lining each eyelid, and lips Ciel knew to be improbably silken involuntarily parted in his relaxed state. He almost looked…innocent somehow. Like there wasn’t a demon billowing behind the fragile veil of humanity he wore.

He continued to stare long after the demon’s eyes fluttered open. Sebastian’s face scrunched up in confusion, and Ciel couldn’t help the strange little smile that pulled at his lip without his permission.

Sebastian blinked. ‘Young master?’

‘You fell asleep.’

‘I did?’

He nodded. ‘I’ve never been able to imagine you sleeping before. You almost look human.’

The smirk returned at half-mast. ‘Almost?’

‘No human looks quite that ethereal, Sebastian,’ Ciel responded, barely above a whisper.

He turned back over, slapping the book shut and dumping it unceremoniously on his bedside table. Taking a deep breath, he moved up to blow out the candelabra Sebastian had placed at his bedside for reading, but before he could, there was an audible click of fingers behind his back, and the light was extinguished.

The sensation of Sebastian’s arm winding around his waist a few moments later didn’t fill him with the fear he had expected, and he leaned further into it.

‘I want to try again.’

The arm around him stiffened. ‘Young master-‘

‘Not now. But I want to soon.’

The arm slowly pulled him until he was lying on his back, facing Sebastian as he hovered half over him.

He chewed his bottom lip, looking away. ‘I came so close last time.’

His butler tugged away a glove, then dragged the newly-bared thumb slowly over his bottom lip, eyes flicking from his lips to his eyes. ‘Young master, may I?’

 

The nervous nod of the head was all it took.

Taking care to watch for adverse reaction, Sebastian lowered himself over Ciel’s torso gradually, resting as little weight on him as he could muster; if the young master needed to push him away, it would not take much effort.

His master’s eyes stayed open as their lips connected for the first time in weeks. The contact was tongueless at first, but soon their lips parted in near perfect unison, making way for the muscles to dance between their mouths.

He delighted in the deep moan that rumbled through the other’s chest and throat, was made ecstatic by the hand that tangled into his locks and held him close. The smell of faint arousal filled his lungs as he breathed deep, and the familiar fluttering in his bones began to make itself apparent; if he didn’t take care to hold back, his talons and teeth would burst forth again.

Their mouths parted with a quiet smack, damp breath drifting over his mouth as he dipped his forehead down and pressed it to Ciel’s. Under his own chest, he could feel the hammering of his master’s heart against his ribcage, and the twitch and flex of the tight muscles that had come with exercise and adulthood. He didn’t miss the lower down movement either; pushed up against his uniform, the stiff pressure of Ciel’s newly-awakened erection was making itself known against his own abdomen in a heated lump under the white cotton nightshirt.

Sebastian’s mind threw him a tantalising image; his master flat on his back with his knees pushed apart, watching on in amazement as his servant thrusted deep into his core and his body swallowed every inch. He would find that familiar little spot within him, rub up against it with fervour, use it to bring him to the very highest peak of orgasm over and over until he was unable to hold himself together any longer. He wouldn’t be rough; Sebastian would treat the young man like carefully crafted crystal glass, the most delicate of tiny spring flowers. He would kiss him to soothe his terrors, caress every inch of his pale skin with the softest gloveless touches, show him to his face that he was worth more than the lies spouted to him by a twisted hunter of the occult.

His master wouldn’t sob in pain, anger, or fright. He would be weeping in unparalleled euphoria. He would see the sun, the moon, and the stars behind the veils of his eyelids, released from his cage to fly free across his mind’s sky as his body was worshipped. He would never think ill of himself again.

‘Sebastian?’

The quiet voice shook him back to reality. ‘Young master?’

‘Not yet. Not yet. Please.’ Ciel’s voice took on a shuddery note, his body trembling and it took a moment to realise the source of the fear; his mind’s unchaste meanderings had send blood rushing southward, and the thick presence was pushing heavily against that of his master’s thigh.

Slowly and carefully, Sebastian rolled them back so they were face to face on their sides. While willing his erection to subside, he arranged the sheets between their bodies like a barrier, setting a thin but visual boundary he would not cross, then enveloped the shivering man in his arms and hummed a soft lullaby-like tune, not stopping until some of the tension melted from the slim shoulders.

When the young man slackened in his embrace, he pressed his lips to his crown, speaking into his hair. ‘The rules have not changed, young master. I will go no further than you allow.’

A pause. ‘I wasn’t scared by you being above me. Just when I felt your…’

‘Even arousal is sometimes out of my control. My self-restraint, however, is something that I will exercise to its utmost limits throughout your rehabilitation.’

‘Rehabilitation. It sounds as if I’ve been institutionalised,’ the young man chuckled bitterly.

‘Well, you did make a deal with a demon, young master.’

As the other stiffened in his grip, Sebastian wondered whether he’d stepped too far; he had meant for the comment to be amusing, not ridiculing. But the momentary worry was swiftly quashed; a hand softly descended on his cheek, and Ciel faced him, amusement written all over his features.

His master’s smirk returned.’Of the things I do regret, our contract is not one of them. I may not have been of sound mind then, but I am of sound mind now. And I do not regret it in the slightest.’

The soft-spoken statement was the last thing said by either of them that evening. For once, the demon knew that his master had meant every word.

And it was the earnestness of those words that, while his master rested in his arms, scared away his ability to join him in slumber for the rest of the night.

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone was hoping for out-and-out smut for this bit, I'm sorry to disappoint- it just didn't feel right, especially after the events of the previous instalment. I want Ciel's progression to be at least somewhat believable, and yet bring back a touch of his personality that he might have lost after the events of part 1.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!


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